"Leopards don't change their spots."  I hate hearing that.  By the time the pseudo-soothsayer gets halfway through saying the word "leopard," I have to bite my lower lip to keep from ridiculing him for that tired sentence.  Being a therapist, my creed says people can change their will when desire demands it, when the rewards are greater than the risks of stagnation.

Only a few days after 9/11, many broadcasters groveled before our attackers: "Why do they hate America?"  Beyond the TV, no one in my rarified circle of New Yorkers and Floridians seemed angered by it.  The deeper meaning and implications about our national security either never registered or were not viewed as horrific.

Since we apparently need hate crime legislation, don't we also need hate terrorism laws?

 We are being told that hate crime is on the rise, but what about addressing the numbers for crime crime?  What about crimes against those victims with non-essential demographics?  The message conveyed by "actions" in New York is that we all need to stop discriminating against criminals.  Asking for money on the streets is no big deal, just like asking for directions or a restaurant, and it's about time we embrace our neighborhood panhandler's freedom of speech and get off our high horses.

Instead of Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why, the focus is on the Goldstein Traitors of our time.

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?  In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it." —1984

Our betters and rulers have labored mightily and nearly won.  For today, simply stating facts is verboten.  And so honest reporting, the pure form of covering a crime itself, is murdered.  Cops are bullied into putting some ill defined Rules of Criminal Engagement before doing their jobs.  Doctors, counselors, teachers, neighbors, anyone interacting with others must stay in their allotted verbal lanes and never utter a word or thought outside the assigned lines.  Law enforcement drives in these same bicycle lanes — fear over facts.  Because facts are a liability to the modern progressive, and some facts are more equal than others.

Did the suspect know what he was doing?  Was it intentional?  What took place at the scene of the crime?  Never mind.  The modern way is to demand that the law prioritize a criminal's feelings over his factual behaviors.  Did he hate?  What was in his heart?  What was in in soul?  These are matters no law or government should ever ask about.

We search out hate everywhere, turning our whole world into Orwell's Ministry of Love, the agency and bureaucracy pursuing thoughtcrime.  How many "Hate Has No Home Here" lawn signs cover a house where Orange Man Racist, Death to Deplorables is an article of faith?

Do some humans have the right to monitor the emotions of other humans?  Will dirty looks, growling, and snarls make the same list as large sodas after Bloomberg's warrior Karate Kid stance against them?

Are emotions the new Orwellian animals — making some emotions more equal than others?

Recently, getting ready to leave work, I went down the hall to the ladies' room.  Opening the door revealed a phone conversation in play.  An attractive black woman who worked in the building was on her phone saying, "All the Jews have gone home for the day. Oh wait, there's one still here."  I looked at her as she turned from the mirror and felt myself on pause until I finally said, "We're all God's Children."  She replied, "Yes, we are," as if she was educating me.  We both stood there a second in silence, and she left.  

 Later, at the elevator, I thought about the black people I routinely see in the building, some more than I see my relatives — a lawyer in my suite and others work for the building management, along with white people, some Jewish, some Italian, Irish, Asian, Muslim, some prejudiced, some not, all fallible, all human.  If only we all could call Kansas home.